{"id":9641,"date":"2015-05-05T11:17:21","date_gmt":"2015-05-05T15:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/?p=9641"},"modified":"2015-05-05T15:55:24","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T19:55:24","slug":"common-hells-private-heavens-im-in-commonweal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2015\/05\/common-hells-private-heavens-im-in-commonweal.html","title":{"rendered":"“Common Hells, Private Heavens”: I’m in Commonweal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

reviewing a show at the National Museum of African Art:<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sitting in hell with a couple of little boys, who are trying to prove they\u2019re not scared. We\u2019re watching a cloth-wrapped figure prostrate itself and bang its fists against the floor, as sobs and wordless singing give way to a howled \u201cI, I, I surrender!\u201d Behind us stretches a huge black coiling thing that looks like a well-fed python. \u201cIt\u2019s just a video,\u201d one kid says in a subdued voice.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re in the depths of the National Museum of African Art, where \u201cThe Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists<\/a>\u201d will run through August 2. The show, which originated in Frankfurt before coming to the United States, features artworks inspired either by Dante\u2019s great poem or by the poem\u2019s setting in the three realms of the afterlife. It\u2019s a big, meandering show. A visitor\u2019s winding progress from hell in the lowest level to heaven on the ground floor has rich symbolic resonance, but it\u2019s easy to get lost\u2014and perhaps that fact has its own symbolism.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

more<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

reviewing a show at the National Museum of African Art: I\u2019m sitting in hell with a couple of little boys, who are trying to prove they\u2019re not scared. We\u2019re watching a cloth-wrapped figure prostrate itself and bang its fists against the floor, as sobs and wordless singing give way to a howled \u201cI, I, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,7],"tags":[302,491,268,174,41],"class_list":["post-9641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-mackerel-snapping","tag-africa","tag-dante-alighieri","tag-disco-paradiso","tag-disco-purgatorio","tag-reading-and-repentance"],"yoast_head":"\n"Common Hells, Private Heavens": I'm in Commonweal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"reviewing a show at the National Museum of African Art: I\u2019m sitting in hell with a couple of little boys, who are trying to prove they\u2019re not scared.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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